BirdCallsRadio

By BirdCallsRadio.comNatural Sciences

BirdCallsRadio episodes

August 28, 2019BCR 176: Nancy Grant, Binge Birding
Nancy Grant is a working journalist and researcher, as well as an active naturalist. Her special area of expertise is the electric power industry and she have over 350 scientific and technical articles published since 1986. These skills along with accurate field notes enabled Nancy to capture in great detail the places and things she saw. Sharing trip photos on social media led to the desire to share these observations with others.
Show Notes:
Tell us about how you planned for this trip and what you brought along to meet your goals.
You met some interesting people along the way, your book you’ve chosen to not use their real names. Why?
You give a talk entitled “On the feathered trail. Birding the friendly way.”
Food preferences of the birds you observe, and how they hunt for that food. You are also careful to include details about your meals, and that you sought out food at one-off establishments rather than chains.
As a woman, traveling alone, what, if any, special precautions did you take to ensure your safety?
What advice do you have for others who contemplate a road trip for the birds?
Note taker, your process for taking field notes, what elements you were especially keen to document.
Visited Goose Island State Park in Texas. Your philosophy and the items you bring along with you.
Where do you want to go next?
Mentioned In Episode:
Nancy Grant
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54 min
August 06, 2019BCR 175: Jason Guerard, BSBO Outreach Director
Jason Guerard is a native Floridian who grew up exploring the woods and family farm, which became the basis for his love of the outdoors and environmental ethic. He earned a degree from Northland College in Ashland, WI, majoring in Outdoor Education/Natural History. Jason brings a diverse background of rich experiences to the Outreach Director position including research, environmental education, and retail management. He spent a number of summers working at the Audubon Camp in Maine on Hog Island, where he was instrumental in delivering ornithological programs along Maine’s mid-coast to teens, families, and adults. While working with the University of Maryland, he studied Grasshopper Sparrows on a restored grassland on Maryland’s Eastern Shore. Jason has spent more hours than he can count scanning the skies atop hawkwatch platforms such as Braddock Bay in Hilton, NY and Cape May, NJ. He returned to Cape May years later to live and bird year round while working for the Cape May Bird Observatory as the Sale Manager of the Northwood Center nature store. Jason has an extensive background in bird monitoring (he is a US Army Corps of Engineers certified bird monitor), guiding/leading field trips, and brings ten years of bird banding experience. He has led a World Series of Birding team to victory (more than once), enjoys photographing nature, and loves to share his passion for birds with the community he surrounds himself with. Most of all, he enjoys spending time outside with his family.
Show Notes:
What early experiences in the natural world helped shape your early interests?
First natural history gig after college was at the Audubon Camp in Maine.
Field research and studies as a freelance naturalist for Manomet Center for Conservation Sciences/North Carolina State University, Braddock Bay Raptor Research and New Jersey Audubon Society, Cape May Bird Observatory.
Project manager and faculty research assistant for the University of Maryland
New Jersey Audubon Society, Cape May Bird Observatory as sales manager,
A stint as a middle school Environmental Science Educator.
Florida you also had freelance gigs with LG2 Environmental Solutions and Florida Audubon. Is this when you got you US Army Corps of Engineers Bird Monitor Certificate?
families move to North West Ohio, we know you were not growing soybeans?
How long did it take for the sharp folks at BSBO to become aware of your unique skill set and put you to work on the BWIAB?
In 2018 you were named project coordinator for the Biggest Week and this year you ran the 10thAnniversary festivities again in May of 2019. Give us the high level view of the single largest birding event in North America from your perspective.
Mentioned In Episode:
Black Swamp Bird Observatory
The Thrushy Award
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1 hr
July 23, 2019BCR 174: Nate Koszycki, Pay it Forward
On Today’s show is one of our featured series called “Pay It Forward” with this series 2nd guest Nate Koszycki and talks with us about his knowledge and passion for birds since the age of 6, including bird identification, distribution, and conservation.
Nate Koszycki thanks the brilliant red of the Northern Cardinal that started started his birding in Toledo, Ohio at the age of six. In 2013, Nate was interviewed by Birds and Blooms Magazine and has since worked hard on extending his knowledge and passion for bird identification, distribution, and conservation with help from his birding mentors and second family, Kenn and Kimberly Kaufman, and the rest of Black Swamp Bird Observatory.
Nate started guiding at age 15, and has since been leading walks for BSBO, the Biggest Week in American Birding, Ohio Young Birders Club, and Toledo Naturalists’ Association. Nate has written both for Audubon and Birds and Blooms magazines; he continues to write on various birding topics, including aspects of young birding. As an undergrad freshman studying Environmental Studies at the University of Toledo, Nate is currently running a campuswide bird window-strike monitoring project in affiliation with Bird-safe Toledo.
Show Notes:
Ohio native, tell us about the area you grew up birding in?
What got you into birds and how old were you?
Birds and Blooms Magazine in 2013
Work hard to improve your skills in all things bird.
The sphere of the Black Swamp Observatory
You count Kenn and Kimberly Kaufman as mentors, elaborate on their influence in your life.
Ohio Young Birders Club and your participation in this club?
Writing pieces on birding topics.
Guiding bird walks since you were 15
Freshman at University of Toledo studying Environmental Sciences
Participation in a Red-headed Woodpecker research project.
Campus wide window strike-monitoring project. what effects window strikes have on birds?
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33 min
July 09, 2019BCR 173: Wayne E. Petersen, Legacy Interview
On Today’s show is one of our featured series called “For The Record, Legacy Interviews.” with this series 8th guest Wayne Petersen, Director of the Massachusetts Important Bird Areas (IBA) Program at the Massachusetts Audubon Society
Wayne R. Petersen is Director of the Massachusetts Important Bird Areas (IBA) Program at the Massachusetts Audubon Society. As co-author of Birds of Massachusetts(1993), co-editor of the Massachusetts Breeding Bird Atlas1 and 2 (2003 and 2013), Field Guide to Birds of Massachusetts (2013), and a New England Regional Editor for North American Birdsmagazine, and editor of the New England Christmas Bird Count for National Audubon, Wayne’s knowledge of the status and seasonal distribution of New England bird life give him a wide perspective when thinking about Important Bird Areas in Massachusetts. Among his other writing projects are authorship of the National Audubon Society’s Pocket Guide to Songbirds and Familiar Backyard Birds (East), and Birds of New England (with Roger Burrows),andcontributing to The Audubon Society Master Guide to Birding, The Sibley Guide to Bird Life & Behavior, and Arctic Wings. Wayne has lead international birding tours on six continents for Field Guides and Mass Audubon, and he serves on the Massachusetts Avian Records Committee (MARC), the advisory committee of the Massachusetts Natural Heritage and Endangered Species Program and the Stellwagen Bank National Marine Sanctuary, and he is a board member of the Wildlands Trust and Bird Observermagazine. In 2005 Wayne was the recipient of the American Birding Association’s Ludlow Griscom Awardfor outstanding contributions in regional ornithology.
Show Notes:
Tell us about your early days. What were the origins of your interest in birds?
Affiliated with the one of Nation’s premier bird conservation organizations, Massachusetts Audubon; as Director of the Massachusetts Important Bird Areas (IBA) Program at the Massachusetts Audubon Society what is the desired outcome and what do you do to realize the goals?
You are a widely published author and editor, including co-author of Birds of Massachusetts (1993), co-editor of the Massachusetts Breeding Bird Atlas 1 and 2 (2003 and 2013), Field Guide to Birds of Massachusetts (2013), and a New England Regional Editor for North American Birds magazine, and editor of the New England Christmas Bird Count for National Audubon, Birds of New England (with Roger Burrows), and contributing to The Audubon Society Master Guide to Birding, The Sibley Guide to Bird Life & Behavior, and Arctic Wings. Considering this impressive body of work, which of these are you most proud of, which was the hardest?
International birding tours on six continents for Field Guides and Mass Audubon.
Massachusetts Avian Records Committee (MARC).
Advisory committee of the Massachusetts Natural Heritage and Endangered Species Program, the Stellwagen Bank National Marine Sanctuary, and your a board member of the Wildlands Trust and Bird Observer magazine.
2005 recipient of the American Birding Association’s Ludlow Griscom Award for outstanding contributions in regional ornithology. Tell us about this award and what it meant to you.
Long-term relationship with the National Audubon Society Hog Island Camp in Maine.
Affiliation with with the Manomet Bird Observatory,
You conservation roots are deep and widespread, tell us about the importance of Massachusetts state ornithologist: Joseph A. Hager and Kathleen S. Anderson.
Your relationship with the late Doctor Noble Proctor of Connecticut.
The late Betty Petersen
You are passionate about conservation and the environment, what issues do you lend your voice to these days, is it still shorebirds and migration?
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1 hr 52 min
May 21, 2019BCR 172: Jeffrey Spendelow, PhD on Roseate Terns
Jeff Spendelow received his Ph.D. (1980) and B.S. (1972) degrees in Biology from Yale University. In 2008 he was elected as a Fellow of the American Ornithologists’ Union, and he has been a Life Member of the AOU; a Founding Life Member of Connecticut Ornithological Association (COA) and several other ornithological societies since the 1970s. He started working on Roseate Terns in 1977, was Director of the Falkner Island Tern Project from 1981-2003, founded the Cooperative Roseate Tern Meta Population Project (CRTMP) in 1987, is a member of the U.S. Fish & Wildlife’s (USFWS) Roseate Tern Recovery Team, and after 35+ years as a federal employee he retired in December 2018 to become an Emeritus Research Wildlife Biologist. Jeff has authored or co-authored more than 70 publications, his research played an important role in the decisions by the USFWS to list Roseate Terns as Endangered and to add Falkner Island, CT to the National Wildlife Refuge system, and he continues to direct the CRTMP which now includes cooperators spanning the entire range of the Northwest Atlantic breeding population from Connecticut to Nova Scotia. Since 2011 he has focused his attention on learning more about the factors that might impact individuals of different ages and breeding status in their use of summer staging sites, especially those sites in the “Cape & Islands” area of Massachusetts.
Show Notes:
Your work with the Roseate Tern made a significant contribution for the listing of this species as Federally Endangered. What did it take to get this species listed?
The Roseate Tern has a very interesting and somewhat odd world wide distribution. Tell us about this and do you have any speculation why the colonies are so dispersed?
Townsend Dickinson remembers that you had installed many protected nesting sites for Roseate Terns on Falkner’s Island some years ago. Some were made from old tires; others were merely driftwood propped up by cobblestones. You noted at the time that these tern condos might give the Roseate’s a better chance at producing young. What was going on here?
Tell us why the Federal Government has an interest in the Roseate Terns?
You have been the Director of PWRC’s Cooperative Roseate Tern Meta-population Project (the CRTMP) ever since organizing it in 1987, what is this body and what do they do?
You are the USGS member and Chair of the Technical Working Group of the USFWS’s Recovery Team for the endangered NW Atlantic breeding population of Roseate Terns. What effort does this entail?
Some terns may be seen with secondary colored bands or flags, why do researchers give them auxiliary bands or other devices?
Where are the main staging areas for Roseate Terns in the Northeast US?
What effects does the presence of nearby people have on the nesting and fledglings success of Roseate Terns on Cape Cod?
You recently transitioned to Emeritus Research Wildlife Biologist fromPatuxent Wildlife Research Center (PWRC) in Laurel, MD If you follow the model set by your esteemed fellow scientist Chandler S. Robbins also of Patuxent, this means you could have 30 or more years of work to do. Seriously do you have a plan yet?
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53 min
May 14, 2019BCR 171: Nancy McAllister, Mom’s Big Year
Nancy is a biologist at the North American Bird Banding Laboratory and an adjunct professor of environmental science at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County. She loves combining a career in field work, research and education. Nancy became an avid birder in the mid-1980’s in her home state of New Jersey. Since then she’s worked for The Nature Conservancy, the Smithsonian Environmental Research Center, and she started a non-profit watershed association. Recently, Nancy has been working with Wildside Nature Tours and did her own 2016 Big Year of birding, a Mom’s Big Year. In February 2017, she was appointed by her County Executive to Howard County’s Environmental Sustainability Board. Nancy holds an M.S. in Conservation Biology and Sustainable Development and lives in Ellicott City, Maryland with her husband, Paul, and their three children.
Show Notes:
How did you get started in birding?
What got you back into birding after taking a hiatus for graduate school and starting your family?
As a mom with 3 school-aged children, what were some challenges you faced in planning a Big Year and how did you overcome them?
What exactly is a big year & what decisions did you have tomake?
Can you tell us about how your family tragedy affected the way you approached your Big Year?
Did you ever want to quit and give up during the year?
As you continued your big year, did you get help willing or otherwise from other birders?
What resources or local guides did you use to help you locate target species?
What were some of your favorite places and parts of your Big Year
Would you consider doing another big year?
What is the biggest lesson you learned that might be valuable to others?
What were your concerns for you personal safety and what steps if any did you take to reduce such risks?
What is the North American Bird Banding Laboratory and what is your affiliation?
You have taught Environmental Science for The University of Maryland Baltimore County, tell us what you get out of teaching please.
Mentioned In Episode:
Moms Big Year
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34 min
April 30, 2019BCR 169: Bill Thompson lll Tribute
On today’s Show I am re-mastering and bringing up to modern day an episode I did with Bill Thompson lll aka BT3 back in October 2012. As many of you know by now Bill Thompson lll sadly passed away on March 25, 2019. Far to early. Julie Zickefoose was kind enough to grant me permission to reuse the song Bill choose back in 2012 for this 2019 episode 169 of BirdCallsRadio called, “Celabrating The Life of Bill Thompson lll”.
Please make sure you stay turned-in to the end of the show to hear the completed version of “Fence Mending” solo by Bill Thompson lll and The Rain Crows.
Bill Thompson lll was the editor and Co-Publisher of the magazine Bird Watcher’s Digest. His parents are the founding publishers and the magazine has been going for more than 30 years. His contributions to birding and nature have not gone unnoticed. In 2008, he was awarded a Service Citizen Award from the U.S Fish & Wildlife Service for his contributions in making the National Wildlife Refuge system more bird and birder-friendly.
His book “The Young Birder’s Guide to Birds of North America” (2012, Houghton Mifflin Company), fits right in with BirdCallsRadio’s mission to get young people interested in and involved with nature. The book also won the silver medal in the Environmental Issues category of the 2012 Moonbeam Children’s Book Awards!
His contributions to birding and nature have not gone unnoticed. In 2008, he was awarded a Service Citizen Award from the U.S Fish & Wildlife Service for his contributions in making the National Wildlife Refuge system more bird and birder-friendly.
He is also, among other things, “a dad, a field trip leader, an ecotourism consultant, a guitar player, a regular speaker, performer on the birding festival circuit, a gentleman farmer, and a fun guy to be around.”
Show Notes:
How did Bird Watcher’s Digest Magazine get started?
The Betsey Birders
Being a mentor.
What sets Bird Watcher’s Digest apart from other magazines.
Sumissions process of articles to Bird watcher’s Digest
The Rain Crows
Young Birder’s Guide Book
Fence Mending by The Rain Crows
Mentioned In Episode:
Bird Watcher’s Digest Magazine
The Rain Crows | ReverbNation
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51 min
April 23, 2019 BCR 168: BirdGenie App
Tom Stephenson, Scott Whittle and Stephen Travis Pope are the Co-Developers of NEW BirdGenie App. BirdGenie is a new app that allows you to identify birds by their songs. By simply pointing your phone at the bird and tapping the record button, BirdGenie analyzes the song and helps you identify the species confidently from a small selection of the closest matches.
BirdGenie is a breakthrough Apple® or Android® app that helps everyone with an Apple® or Android® smartphone or tablet accurately identify birds in their backyard, local park, or nature trail—all with the tap of a button! Just hold up your phone, record the bird singing, and BirdGenie will help you identify the species. The app’s highly developed sound identification engine and expert matching system enable anyone to achieve results with previously unheard of accuracy. It’s perfect for anyone who is curious and wants to learn more about the birds around them.
BirdGenie includes up to two hundred vocalization types for one hundred species: all of the birds likely to be encountered in a backyard, local park, or on a hike in North America at any time of the year. The app is easy to use: just point your smartphone or tablet at a bird, and tap the screen when the bird starts singing. The app’s automatic pre-record feature ensures that you won’t miss the beginning of the song and BirdGenie’s patented, highly accurate expert system matches the recording to the closest species. The app’s sophisticated noise-reduction feature means that even in noisy environments, where there is conversation or traffic, you can discover what bird you’re listening to.
Mentioned In Episode:
BirdGenie | ID Birds by Song
BCR 085: Tom Stephenson & Scott Whittle; The Warbler Guide
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56 min
April 16, 2019BCR 167: Nancy Langston, Sustaining Lake Superior
Nancy Langston. She is a Distinguished Professor of Environmental History at Michigan Tech on the shores of Lake Superior. She has written 4 books about environmental change, and she’s working now on a 5th. Today we are going to talk with Nancy about her most recent book, Sustaining Lake Superior, focuses on the interconnected histories of watershed health, human health, and forest health–all in the context of climate change.
An important note on the book Sustaining Lake Superior, Nancy is donating all proceeds she receives from book sales to local nonprofits working to protect and restore Lake Superior.
Show Notes:
The initial exploitation from clearcut logging resulted in a massive loss of wetlands what was the impact of the loss?
Water use and water diversion, pragmatic solution solved some problems but left a pollution legacy that still lives.
Why were lakes and streams and boreal forests sprayed with arsenic, copper sulfate, DDT and toxaphene in the 1940s and ’50s?
How does Boreal Forest pulp extraction affect Great Lake Communities? What are dioxin and its effects on peoples health?
What is taconite, what was the attraction and what were the environmental effects of widespread taconite processing?
You have described the human impact of industrial pollution, invasive species, and habitat loss. Why are some environmental ideas sufficient for one era too often fail in another?
What can be learned from those efforts and applied to new threats including climate change, synthetic chemicals, and forest change?
How can this study be considered a microcosm of worldwide environmental challenges?
How do toxins affect common loons in the north?
How is climate change affecting loons?
Loons are good indicators of watershed health, what efforts have people made to restore and protect loons, and what more can we do and what can we learn from Verna Mize and Arlene Lehto?
Mentioned In Episode:
Nancy Langston website
Sustaining Lake Superior
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1 hr 13 min
April 09, 2019BCR 166: Nathan Pieplow, Peterson Bird Sounds of Western NA
Nathan Pieplow is the author of the Peterson Field Guide to Bird Sounds-both the eastern volume, published in 2017, and now the new western volume, which arrived on April 2, 2019, both published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing. Nathan is one of the authors of the Colorado Birding Trail and a former editor of the journal Colorado Birds. He teaches writing and rhetoric at the University of Colorado.
Show Notes:
You live in Boulder, Colorado and teach writing and rhetoric at the University of Colorado. How does this resonate with your secret life as an ear birder?
recount one story. You went to Rancho La Noria, Nayarit, Mexico in search of a rare and mysterious owl.
It took you 14 years, you started in 2003, to create the eastern version of Field Guide to Birds and you started the western version before the eastern was published, what motivated you to accomplish this besides the fact that identifying a bird by their calls is arguably one of the most difficult skills to acquire?
You acknowledge that learning bird song was not easy for you. You essentially had to reverse engineer bird songs in order to deconstruct the variables so that they could be understood.
Crucial to identifying bird sounds are five key aspects.
How can spectrograms be used by the average birder, to lead to specific identification?
So musical training or memorization is not needed to identify bird calls, you have in the book a “Sound Index”, a sort of key that gets the sound you heard quickly to a short list of likely birds. How does this work?
You have a vast audio component to this book that is available on the web
How can an individual record a bird sound and get a spectrogram of that sound?
What is the next great frontier in bird sounds, is it possibly a new region or some great new technology?
Mentioned In Episode:
Earbirding
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37 min

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